28 May 2010

much these next 10 days or so. We'll be in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, back to New York, back to Pennsylvania... and then finally on our way home. We appreciate your prayers, and please forgive me if I don't have the opportunity to post quite so much.

27 May 2010

One of the other moms from Victoria's class snapped these photos the other day... Victoria has had such a great year with this little group of gals and an amazing second grade teacher... She will certainly miss them when we return to Niger in July...

"Seest thou a man diligent in his work? He shall stand before kings..."

Proverbs 22:29

...and diligence is very important when handling explosive devices like canons ...or trying to change lightbulbs. Yes, there's a story behind that comment: tonight Jonathan noticed that one of the end table light bulbs had burned out; he took the initiative to go, find a light bulb and then try to replace the non-working one. Unfortunately, he'd grabbed the wrong type of bulb; we saw a flash, heard a pop and the Jon-man was quite startled. Thankfully, he wasn't hurt!

All laughing, sighs of relief and prayers of thankfulness aside ~ we are delighted to see God growing this trait in the character of our sweet and joyful little guy. Not only will it serve him well in each endeavor, but we pray Jonathan will use this conscientiousness and attention to detail to better learn to know, love and glorify God and to serve Him as Lord, forever.

#125 watching a video about the book "Already Gone," and hearing Ken Ham say that the ark was so big, not because there were so many animals needing the space, but because our gracious God wanted that space available... for so many more who could have listened, heard and accepted the message of upcoming judgment.

...and share your thoughts. I've often heard the claim that all those little decisions we make throughout our days are neither here or there (what socks you choose to wear, shampoo or baking soda solution to wash our hair, mac and cheese versus potato soup for dinner, etc...) ...well, ...they just don't really impact our world, near or far. Neither do they matter much in the eternal scope of things. This author would not agree with that philosophy. I'd already been meditating on that very thought for several months when I came across her blog post. While I think there are obviously certain decisions that have more eternal weight and significance (salvation, marriage, etc.), I think the Lord has been teaching me that I can't begin to understand the impact or consequences of what seem to be simple and unimportant decisions. That truth impacts enormously daily life as a wife, mama and friend.

20 May 2010

I don't know about your family, but finding cute, modest and wearable swimsuits for all the girls in this house can be a challenge, and this is one of those challenges that is only going to grow right along with them as they get older. My oldest has recently had to move up from the children's department to junior's or women's, depending upon the store, and we spent several hours trying on suits some weeks back so that we could head to the Great Wolf Lodge as a family over Spring Break. When I think of trying to do that times 6...? Oh well, needless to say, it is one of those overwhelming thoughts and I'm glad that THAT reality is still more than a few days down the road!

I stumbled across this giveaway, and decided to take advantage of it. In general, I buy my suits from Lands End and can sometimes find ones that I like at Walmart (but they don't last as long); I'd never heard of Hapari, but looking through their selection, it did appear that there were some very nice possibilities available. Go ahead and take a look, and let me know what suits/combos you'd pick for you or your girls (if you have 'em).

And if you'd like to participate in this giveaway, head on over to "Two of a Kind" to enter.

Would you please stop and take a moment to pray for a young adult in our church who is very sick right now... on life support and they aren't sure what is making him sick. Please include his family- parents, siblings and others, in those prayers.